The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to enhancing response to item queries at a website, and, more specifically, but not exclusively, to enhancing response to item queries at a website by expanding the search for the item in a shared catalog comprising a plurality of offered items from a plurality of websites.
Online shopping and trading has already gained a significant share of the overall shopping volume and it is rapidly growing.
Extensive resources, for example, advertisement, campaigns, public relations (PR) and the like are invested by online traders to attract potential buyers to visit their online stores, i.e. online trading websites.
While the heavy investment may bring the potential buyers to visit the online trading website(s), only a fraction of these visitors actually make a purchase and/or a deal. The conversion rate of potential buyers to actual clients may be as low as 2% implying of an extreme inefficiency in converting potential clients to actual clients.
The low conversion rate may be the result of a plurality of reasons, for example, limited products variety at the online trading website(s), transaction terms the buyer may find not attractive, language barriers and the like.
The low conversion rate may affect large online traders having a relatively high product variety and/or may be well known for the products they offer. However, small online traders may suffer to a greater degree as they typically carry a lower product variety due limited resources, for example, stock cost, storage space, depreciation and the like. Moreover, the small online traders may not be well branded for leading the potential buyers who are looking for a specific product and/or product category to visit an online trading website which does not offer the requested product and/or category.